I heard them saying: Fish, fish, fish Free fish for the suffering African Your history's pain, and misery Your misery's plain, and surely Fish will make you whole. Your ancestors feeble Fell to imperial machinations. Your past heroes were but pale Imitations of ours... here some fish. Your misery's plain and surely, You can't do anything without me. Your children are feeble, And can't learn anything. Fish will make you whole: Here grab a bite. I got it where you can't go. Your misery's painfully surly. Cheer up, have a bite. Fish will make you whole. Fish will make you whole. Your history's all that matters. Here grab a bite. Forget potential. You don't have any. I'll save you. Your surly misery's painful But surely miserly gains would Change it all for you? Free fish for the suffering African Who can't do anything today, Because history took it away: Fish will make you whole. I said no. Grabbed a fishing pole. (c) nyonglema
Category Archives: sadness
Suffering Agony, suffering, hurt, anguish
Sadness Depression, despair, hopelessness, gloom, glumness, sadness, unhappiness, grief, sorrow, woe, misery, melancholy
Disappointment (Dismay, disappointment, displeasure)
Shame (Guilt, shame, regret, remorse)
Neglect (Alienation, isolation, neglect, loneliness, rejection, homesickness, defeat, dejection, insecurity, embarrassment, humiliation, insult)
Sympathy (Pity, sympathy)
Downhill #despair #darknessIt
It all goes downhill from here.
At home, I’m not the man I paint
On the wall of my dreams. I’m not he.
My kids see me, but I see a faint
Depiction of myself, riddled with fleas
I see a demon with horns in their saint
Advising, holding, downhill to hell.
It all goes downhill from here
When even at work your effect is faint
And your figures are wrong, targets wrong
And failure’s the only thing you acquaint
As the reports are filed and you’re wrong wrong.
Where did you go wrong in all that you meant
To achieve as you go downhill to hell?
It all goes downhill from where
Suicide lurks in the scripts on the page,
Taunts you with methods, means to fix this.
Gives you the manual to soothe and assuage,
In detailed depictions with diagrams and digits,
To stop decay and just leave it all without rage
Down down down down downhill to hell.
It all goes downhill from here.
Even the staff is broken, staring with rage
As you disgust in the reek of your failure.
The promises filled the meter, but didn’t meet the gauge
And your futile attempts to fix are lures
To aggravate the stench and meet Murphy’s adage:
“It will go downhill downhill to hell.”
What’s left? What’s left? What’s left?
Nothing. Nothing. Downhill downhill …to hell.
But it need not go downhill from here.
Your finger’s on the trigger of solace, or so you think.
There’s a Saviour in true panoramic review
Of the situation. He resets the stroboscope on your blinks
So you can see the brightness now out of view.
It’s never easy when the dishes seem to overfill the sink
But it always goes down down and away from hell.
For it only seem to go downhill from here
Because pain injects despair and shortsightedness within
And Hope’s disguised as sci-fi anime.
But if you look deeper, that veil will wear out very thin
And within God whispers each step of the way:
“It’ll be OK. Let me take you off the sand for a spin”
And your “Yes” will take you up up and away to well.
(c) Nyonglema
The End #writing201 #bye #aurevoir #aufwiedersehen
End it all with tears and gall or love’s joy,
Fleeting time’s demand is all I dreaded most!
Ten days pens blazed eyes mine like childhood toys,
Ten days then this: Ben says “Time” to all posts.
How lovely it started: words played with me;
Ideas from child years, from teen years and now
Poured through each page I read in cam’rad’rie
Blending into this punch that leaves me “Wow!”
Yes fun felt deep is one fore’er to keep
Poetry’s duty alive on running feet.
Tricks learnt and thoughts earned in laugh or in weep
Shall walk me till I’m past Earth’s defeat.
Friends, to part brings pain, but it’s been joy
We’ll end not with tears and all, but love’s joy.
(c) Nyonglema
Memories of Your Food #writing201 #day8 #RIPmum
The kitchen slab of long ago, with veggies and onions
And meat and knives and a utensil stack
And water and stock and “kanwa” and skills like a surgeon
And love and will to chop and then hack
Till pieces are ready to be put in the cauldron
Of oil of olive and salt and more
And make my meal, no a meal for me and the squadron
Of 2 bigger boys and 1 girlish bore,
Comes to me now in stabs and jabs to my sore bones
When I pause to think of your smile
For gone are you and the skill and love and scones
And we won’t see you for quite a while.
(c) Nyonglema
On his blindness by John Milton #writing201
On his blindness by John Milton
When I consider that my sight is bent, ere half my days in this dark world and wide, and that one talent which is death to hide lodg’d with me nearly useless…
I’ve been in specs since 14, but have been myopic from birth. Myopia being a strange condition in my environment (my gramma on the paternal side could thread a needle at 90), it was ignored until I couldn’t copy the questions on the chalkboard in school, and my grades blurred into the distance as my every experience.
I still remember my first glasses and the glee in me as I could see leaves. It was magic no other soul would comprehend: there they fluttered and waved at me, green and beautiful, each with its own character. Gone were the green blobs that stood at the end of branches. This poem from John Milton represents my greatest fear, and for having lived most of my life without seeing more than 2m on, and for having imagined doomsday as days without my eyes, the words ring deep within me. My consolation lies in the line where he states that it’s ok, one will find a way to serve God even in these conditions.
Here goes:
When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodg’d with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide;
“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”
I fondly ask. But Patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: “God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.”
-John Milton
Yes, I can also serve even without this marvelous talent we take for granted!
Screen #escapade #despair
I’m looking at you,
To find a better summer,
The letters just blink
(c) Nyonglema
My son’s tooth #RIPmum #loss #missTheWell
I still remember when you were but members kicking in the air,
Reaching for my hair, my glasses, mouth bare, wide stare
Living life to the full without a fear, and very little care:
Your empty stomach, full diapers, or when dada or mum’s not there.
Yes, your gums gleamed for the future white to grow there,
And the first push through brought your mum-mum to crazy cheer,
And brought you and gramma and mum to some hospital chair,
To tend a fever…shame most of these times I was on foreign stairs.
The pictures brought me joy too, and I showed each peer,
Like “Check that out, the teeth are showing” to their blank stare
Of non-understanding, or about-to-jeer, or I-don’t care.
But that little trophy was mine and mine to carry everywhere!
Then they multiplied: more incisors premolars and each year
There was more to show in your mouth than in some trade fairs!
We were proud, but I bet as high as your head was your care
For the diamonds pushing through your gums as if fore’er.
But now I can feel the stab of the salty streak of each tear
That poured out as four years later the incisive pioneer
Lost its hold and you panicked and at that time we weren’t there
To guide you on this change that to you was a great scare.
But but how could you have…but but….Mummy….
How could I have known that things strong one day leave?
How could I have known that this time it wasn’t a pet peeve
And that that last heave for breath is the last you’d give?
How could I have known that so soon we would all have to grieve?
You were decisive and strong, standing through the toughest
And the roughest weather you brushed off your body’s surface,
And put on a warm face, smiled to heal the pain in my sore nest
Where the eggs of hope were being infested by hornets.
Mummy…
Like my little boy living life not thinking about the whites,
I loved deep but saying “I love you” was an Isaac sacrifice,
And by your bier, staring through the glass at shut made-up eyes,
I’m saying “I love you” as if to thaw your face and skin of ice.
(c) Nyonglema
In front of the door #addiction #lost #hope
Tip tap tip tap tip tap dumm dumm dumm
Tip tap tip tap tip tap dumm dumm dumm
The butterflies don’t fly around anymore where I live
Nor do bees weave honey out of the sweet notes from trees.
Outside there’s quiet, so quiet even the colours took leave
And the dim light scoffs the darkness dancing around me
The fireflies died eons ago. Those notes of the piano
I long to hear turned to screeches within each cord
Of my soul: broken chords, broken hope more than you’d know
The cling clang of my chains and my beaten soul are in accord.
Tip tap tip tap tip tap dumm dumm dumm
Tip tap tip tap tip tap dumm dumm dumm
Yes the steps outside, those steps I hear as I fall
Into this abyss I love, those steps keep knocking and get denied
Entry to my cosy coroner of paradise which tends the walls
Within which I cage myself: this body I’ve hatefully knifed.
I clutch the bane and nurse my pain as my very own kin
And wish they could float in, wishing the owl’s hoot
Were not real, and they could pass through any- and everything
That the nightmares in my reality were entirely moot.
How shall I let them in to take away my pleasure
My treasure, my precious tender executioner?
The butterflies don’t fly around here in any measure
And the bees fled the pestilence in this corner.
(c) Nyonglema
Pain #pain #humility #compassion
A stab straight to the heart,
A flicker of hope gone away,
Forever present, a cancer on your skin,
In the bones or other frail tissues,
Coming to you when you least expect;
In every respect your closest companion.
In everyday it plays a part,
Like a tax you owe, you must pay!
Burden on your shoulder, a fragile kin,
Engendered from salient issues.
A kin you know you can’t neglect,
‘Cos though unpleasant, must be in the union.
Yes, though it is in your skin a wart,
A messenger teaching you to apprecia’e
The un-corrupted areas of skin,
To keep those bubbling insults in disuse.
Instead look at what good’s left, and delect
In the life-learning process; an important pinion.
You run away, you waste your millions,
No escape, you are the next to infect.
Water fills your failing sinews,
He’s stuck with you, no fleeing!
Your closest companion on everyday,
When you least expect he is taking part.
(c) Nyonglema
What would you do if it were you? #refugees #syria #RCA #somalia #eritrea
There are guns shouting fear through your window shutters,
A bomb blast breaks your neighbour’s home and you’re running down the street.
The kids don’t get it. They don’t get it: why is there blood in the gutters?
Why are hands without bodies, heads with gaping mouths, missing severed feet?
The screaming gets louder, and it’s on your spouse’s and your shoulders
To save them from a threat, unarmed, untrained and the closest
You’d come to death were those Expendables movies in your hard disk folders.
The banks are shut, the bus system is shut, you never even had a Toyota starlet.
What would you do if it were you? If you’re playing metal gear solid in your own town?
Only this time, you have one life, no continue nor save, and to your untrained self are tagged
More untrained and even naive souls counting on you’re strength in this showdown.
What would you do if the only option was either death by exhaustion or having your head bagged?
(c) Nyonglema
